


I just wanted to say goodbye

by Trashypoubelle



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trashypoubelle/pseuds/Trashypoubelle
Summary: Wheatley is in space, but he’s running out of power. He has one person he needs to talk to before the end. (This is a work in progress, any constructive input is appreciated!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story so please be gentle with me ;-; comments are always appreciated! Ps I didn’t do any grammar check so sorry for any errors

Getting crushed by glados had done a number on wheatley, in more ways than anticipated. He had been fitted with a backup power option, letting him run on solar energy until someone came to slot him back into his designated space on the rail. Theoretically, he could’ve lived forever on the backup power system. If it had still worked. He knew he was running out of time, red warning lights flashed in his view as alarms blared into his auditory processors.  
“Warning: low power. Please connect to power station immediately” chirped the emergency system. It was so similar to /her/ voice, but two or three octaves higher. ‘Probably to sound less menacing’, he thought.  
“Well that’s not exactly an option up here, now is it?!” He snapped. He was tired, and strangely cold. He’d never thought about how cold space was, he’d only felt the reassuring consistency of Aperture’s 68 degree environment. He cursed the scientists for giving him heat sensitivity. His optic surveyed the scene around him, the barren emptiness that was his home for...however long he’d been up here, he’d lost count at 421 days. And now it would be his grave. He let out a weighty sigh, as if he’d emptied a real set of lungs to try to relieve his melancholy. He’d held out on using the radio transmission again, but there was no point waiting anymore. He only had about 182 minutes of power left, and the transmission would eat up most of it.  
“Well, uh, no use in dragging my feet on this. Not that I have any feet, y’know, just got these handles here. Just a figure of speech, if you will. Humans use them a lot, figures of speech. Not that I’m human, definitely not-ok that’s beside the point.” He rattled on, moving in the moon’s orbit at a snail’s pace. He turned on his transmitter and his handles wiggled when he saw that his signal had been detected. “Alright, well, at least I know someoneout there is going to hear this. Not all for nothing.” 

Chell sat in her small living room, reading a novel she’d found at the market. It was a period drama, not entirely her taste but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d set up a nice life for herself once she’d left that place, she found a small friendly settlement near the ruins of the facility and set down stakes there. The only thing to remind her of that robotic hell were her long fall boots,portal gun, jumpsuit (all in storage), and a small white and blue table radio she had snatched up before she was thankfully kicked out. It was playing smooth jazz, music lightly enveloping the room in a cozy and relaxing atmosphere. Until it began to crackle. 

“Uh, he-hello? Anybody there? Actually, you can’t answer that, just realized it. More of a uh, one way sort of thing going on here. Um anyways, if you’re listening, Chell, it’s your uh, old pal, Wheatley! Remember me? Blue optic, funny, charming, definitely not a moron...may or may not have tried to kill you.” A long sigh buzzed through the radio’s speakers. He knew her name? How was he doing this? WHY was he doing this? Chell’s body tensed as the hairs on her neck stood up. She was wary, but couldn’t make herself turn it off. Not just yet. In all honesty, she’d been haunted by their last interaction. She’d felt so disturbed, personally being the one to condemn him to his own form of hell, just him and kevin up there. But he had deserved it, he had done so many horrible things. He was no better than /her/, she reminded herself.  
“Well, I’m uh, transmitting? Radioing? Let’s go with that, radioing you because I...There’s no nice way to say this, really, bit of a bummer any way you look at it. I’m uh, I’m dying. I mean, not like how humans die, I’m just running out of power, but it’s not really that different, I guess. Same end result, that is. No more, being awake and such. But anyways, that’s the heart of the matter, I’m not going to be ‘on’ for much longer. Few more minutes or so. So I just...” what did he want to say? ‘Dammit, man just say it!’ He scolded.  
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you, that I ruined everything, that I’m a sodding moron. I’m sorry.” He blurted out. Word vomit was a common occurance for Wheatley, but it was also a sign of his genuine feelings. He truly felt mental anguish when he thought of how he’d treated her. “I wish I, I could go back and just fix it, yeah? Make myself not be such a bellend. Maybe, maybe shake myself and go ‘raaaagh stop it, you moron!’ Heh,  
I mean, couldn’t really shake myself, no arms of course...I miss...I miss you. I miss being your friend, being good wheatley, helpful wheatley. I just want to be there with you now.” He shuttered his optic for a moment, contemplating.  
“Wherever you are, I just hope you’re safe, and that you’re happy. Truly, I mean it, scout’s honor and all that. I want you to be happy. For me. I wish I could’ve been the one to actually do that, make you happy, that is, because...you’re the one that made me happy. Y’know, not with the whole taking over the facility thing, but just, just BEING there, and-and listening to me. No one ever put up with me before, not for so long.” Emergency alarms started once again,  
“emergency: 2 minutes left of power. Please connect to power station immediately.” He dismissed it, and continued with the little time he had left.  
“I didn’t think things would end like this for me, for old Wheatley. I thought...I dunno what I thought, maybe she’d kill me, or I’d just rust away on my management rail. Maybe you’d put me down during some test and just forget me in there. No, you wouldn’t do that, you weren’t like that. You were, you were good. I wish I could’ve been good...I just wanted to say goodbye, for real this time, and just...I’m sorry.” He turned off his transmitter and just floated, drifting along in the vast nothingness. His optic flickered as the warnings faded, and his shutters drooped down. “Well, now she knows, I hope. She knows.” If he’d had a face, there would have been a contented smile, bittersweet but accepting of his fate. He’d always been scared of dying, but now that it was here, he only found a numbing sense of regret in the place of his once potent fear.  
“System shutdown in 10, 9, 8...”  
“I hope she’s happy, somewhere down there.” He looked over at the blue and green sphere in the distance one last time, as the color in his optic faded into black.


	2. His mind is a maze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the angsty feels train, with a new character coming into the mix

The shadow flickered quickly across the test chamber, small and unassuming. It wouldn’t have been noticed by Her, let alone investigated. And that’s exactly how Doug wanted it to be, completely overlooked. It was his only way to survive in this place. He had woken up from cryosleep two hours ago, and was already on the move. He had been scouring the testing chambers for her, looking for any evidence that she was still in the facility. So far, he’d found nothing. A childish glee had started to bubble up as he scurried from hideout to hideout, starting to believe that maybe she actually got out. And if she could, maybe there was still hope for him. He now sat in the hideout closest to Her lair, looking through the vent grate to peek at her monitors. All he saw on the screen was the two robots, solving test after test for Her amusement. He smiled, knowing that if She had gotten those two out of storage, then it was true: she’d escaped. He began to make his way back to a different hideout to enjoy the good news and to plan his own escape, when a robotic voice came over a speaker in her lair. “Incoming transmission, Aperture personality core #182”   
Her body flexed as a mechanical sigh pushed its way out. “Fine, let’s hear what the moron has to say.” The Rattman was confused, who was this “moron”? The room then filled with an unfamiliar voice, which rambled on for a moment until it seemed to find it’s point. “Look, I, I am sorry about all this, really, and I just, I want you to know that.” The voice sounded genuine and full of regret, which confused rattman even more. Why is this personality core saying sorry to Her? The voice continued for a few moments, saying something about having no power and running out of time. “I didn’t think things would end like this for me, for old Wheatley. I thought...I dunno what I thought, maybe she’d kill me, or I’d just rust away on my management rail. Maybe you’d put me down during some test and just forget me in there. No, you wouldn’t do that, you weren’t like that. You were, you were good. I wish I could’ve been good...I just wanted to say goodbye, for real this time, and just...I’m sorry.” The robot voice spoke again, “transmission ended.”   
“Ugh,” She groaned, “how stupid are you? Do you really think she’ll forgive you after all you did? You’re more of a moron than I thought.” She turned her attention back to the monitor, and he turned to leave his hideout, wanting to put as much distance as he could between himself and her.  
. . .   
Chell ripped through boxes of old items in her attic. Tears sat in the corners of her eyes as her brow furrowed in determination. At last, she found what she’d been looking for. She never wanted to go back there, but things had changed. She knew that /she/ must know how to get him back, how to fix him. And now, she had no choice but to confront it, the fact that she missed that little chatterbox. She missed his constant rambling and upbeat nature, even when it was less than appropriate. She missed the times before things had gone to hell, when he was himself. Like he had just been, when talking through the radio. She was going to get him. It was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when she was going to get him back and jam him into the nearest power station. And She was going to help, whether she liked it or not. She slipped on her long fall boots, tugged up her jumpsuit zipper, and grabbed her pack stuffed to the brim with provisions. She could see the crumbling walls of the facility from her home, having wanted to keep a close eye on it, and shot a portal onto one side. The orange glow of the portal in the distance let her know she’d hit her target. She took out her coveted jar of conversion gel and splashed it on the side of her home, immediately shooting her second portal there. With a gurgling blip, she jumped through without hesitation to begin her mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:  
> Hi guys, sorry for such a short chapter/ any spelling grammar mistakes! I’ve been working on getting the first few chapters of this story written, but this semester has been crazy. I’ll hopefully update soon, let me know what you think of the story so far!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chell is back and makes a deal with an old “friend”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, updates have been slow but if you’re still here, I’m planning to upload more chapters over the winter break. Hope you like the story so far! Ps-as with every chapter, please excuse any formatting/grammar errors

“SPAAAACE! So much space! See that, it’s space!”   
Kevin’s optic wobbled in every direction as he took in the vast field of celestial bodies in front of him. Space never ceased to amaze him, even after years of being away from earth. “Hey, hey, look at it, it’s space!” He chirped, swivelling around to look at the once bright blue optic only to find it grey and dull. Kevin was confused by the lack of chatter from his companion, who usually ignored his enthusiasm for astronomy and went off on his own philosophical tangents, something about robot hell and something called “chell”. Kevin didn’t care much for philosophy. But, it was somewhat nice to have a constant source of noise other than himself, considering there was no other noise in space. The other core had gone silent a day ago, and kevin at first assumed he was taking a “nap” to conserve power. But now, kevin was starting to wonder, ‘When was he going to wake up?’  
. . .  
Chell landed with a loud clunk of her long fall boots. She had portaled into a dilapitated testing chamber, abandoned and left for nature to reclaim. Light pooled into the center of the room through the caved in ceiling, sun illuminating the flourishing plant life. Metal scaffolds lay haphazardly, with white panels littering the room. Chell spotted a doorway hidden behind a set of broken panels and immediately began to portal her way to the exit, crossing the room easily. With no power in this chamber, the doors to had to be pried open. Chell grunted in effort as she pulled one side open just enough to squeeze through. She landed on the other side with a small thud, huffing lightly as she stood up to continue onwards. She had entered into the once active emancipation grid and elevator, both of which were out of service without power. She turned to her right and saw a metal bridge leading into the distance. There was no other way to go. She turned on the small flashlight and headed in.   
. . .   
Doug shot up at the sudden noise, already planning how to evade whatever had just entered the chamber. “What was that?!” Hissed the small companion cube sitting nearby. He shushed it quickly and slid them into the shadows of the small room. He had been taking a much needed nap after slowly making his way to his least dangerous hideouts, the areas of the facility that she had completely abandoned. Here, he could usually count on being left alone and was free to scavenge for food, water, and supplies. Cryosleep had done a number on him, leaving him weak and easily fatigued. Carrying Cubert, his sole companion (cube), had not helped him recover either. He thought He’d come here to get his strength back, but it seemed that his oasis had been uncovered. He peered out of a vent facing the center of the room, and he had to do a double take. “What is it?” Cubert whispered. It was her, the girl from before. Why was she here? He watched her as she navigated the chamber and pry her way through the broken doors. To him, she was suprisingly nimble and efficient. “Look, whatever it is, let’s get out of here! It can’t be anything good.” Cubert whined, willing his friend/owner to grab him and run away to safety. “It’s not dangerous, don’t worry.” Doug reassured him. Doug knew to a certain degree that Cubert was just a manifestation of his paranoia, another symptom of his currently untreated schizophrenia. But he didn’t care, Cubert was one of the only comforts he had in this place. The cube sighed and waited for Doug to finish staring at whatever was out there. Doug watched as she exited the room, and immediately started to pack up his belongings. He didn’t know why, but he felt a need to follow her, as a sense of dread filled his stomach. What if she got hurt, or worse, she found her? He had no idea if it was just his paranoia or his gut instinct, but he thought it was probably best to follow along. “Where are we going?” Cubert asked warily, seeing the glint in Doug’s eyes.   
“That noise, it was her. The girl. We’re going to follow her.” He replied, shoving paint markers and a can opener into his pockets. “What? You can’t be serious. Whoever she is, she’s bad news if she could survive in here!”   
Doug turned sharply, “I’ve survived in here too.”   
Cubert was silent for a moment. “No sane person can survive in here.” Doug chuckled, he had a point. he wasn’t exactly his sharpest at the moment. The talking companion cube was proof of it. He may have been a paranoid shizophrenic, but he was a (somewhat) self aware paranoid shizophrenic. He stood and scooped up the cube, and looked back at the room. “We can’t hide forever. We have to try to get out of here again. Maybe she can help.” The girl seemed capable and well versed in using the ASHPD. doug just hoped that she was level headed, or at least sane enough to not get him killed. He readjusted Cubert on his back, patted his left coat pocket out of habit, and scurried off to follow her into the facility.   
. . . 

Running through the inner halls and maintenance tunnels of Aperture, Chell began to scan through her memories of the facility’s layout. She hated that she knew this place like the back of her hand, but it was also a vital asset at the moment. She ran along the rickety metal bridges, already knowing how to get to her preferred destination. Just as she rounded a corner, a set of panels slowly creaked apart, opening into a small doorway. She eyed the new opening warily, getting the ASHPD ready. She cautiously entered into the new room, looking around in both directions. She held her breath for a moment, waiting for any turrets to activate, or any thermal discouragement beams to come into view. So far, nothing, but she knew better than to let her gaurd down in here.   
“Oh hello, how nice to see you again.” an all too familiar voice echoed around the chamber as the opening behind chell closed.   
“And by nice, I mean dreadful. That being said, it is...interesting that you’ve come back here. I wonder why. Maybe you realized you lack the basic social skills to even say hello to another human.” chell let her continue on, looking for a way to escape. She spotted the opening to the emancipation grid across the room, standing open for her to sprint into. It was too easy, too simple, but chell didn’t have much of a choice. She needed to get to the mainframe, not stand around and play games with her. As she continued thinking aloud, chell sprinted towards the door. She was only feet from the opening when panels swooped down to cover her exit. “Where do you think you’re going? We were having such a nice chat. Well, I was.” The voice questioned, going down in octave with each word. Chell pulled out a marker from her bag and began to scribble on the panel in front of her. “Hey, no graffiti allowed in the chamb...are you kidding me?” She let out a simulated sigh of disgust as she read the word on the panel, ‘Wheatley’. “I’m sorry, I have no idea who or what that is.” Chell’s brows furrow at the camera, pointing again at the word more forcefully. “You know, I didn’t think you’d have the capacity to spell, let alone write. You’re not as developmentally delayed as I thought. Good for you.” Chell used the ASHPD to grab a nearby companion cube and launched it into the camera. “Well now you’re just being unreasonable. Fine, You want the moron? I’ll give you him, on one condition. I’m sick of the bots, they don’t create organic results when they test and to be honest, they’re not exactly the best and brightest of the bunch. I’ve just set up a new round of tests, all for you.” She sneered. “You’re going to solve them, and I’m going to watch. Just like old times. And you’re not going to try to kill me, or destroy any more lab property. If you follow those rules, I’ll give you the moron. If not, well...you’ve already been acquainted with the turrets.” Chell glared into the nearest camera, already thinking of ways to dismantle her with a variety of power tools. “Do we have a deal?” Chell stared into the now broken camera, then nodded. “Great,” she nearly purred. “Enter the elevator to continue to the next chamber. We’re going to have so much fun together. Think of it as an extended exercise in social interaction.” Chell walked into the clear tube, and steeled herself as the door closed.


	4. Mistakes were made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chell makes a mistake and our favorite ratt finally makes an appearance

Ch 4

Chell had no idea how long she’d been testing for. It had likely been days, she thought, but couldn’t be sure, the chambers had become one long blur. The chamber she was currently solving included run of the mill thermal discouragement beams, moats, and some easily destroyed turrets. it was getting hard to stay focused with each passing minute, dehydration and fatigue slowly weighing down on her weary shoulders. The only thing keeping Chell standing was a constant flow of adrenaline and outright stubbornness. She wasn’t going to let her win in any possible form. Human biology be damned, she was going to get to her, smack her chassis around with a metal pipe like the world’s most passive aggressive piñata, and finally rip out her mainframe with her bare hands. _‘That’ll have to wait’*_ Chell shook her head quickly to clear her mind, strands of hair flying out of her now nearly undone ponytail. Straightening up, she pointed the ASHPD at the floor of the room. The chamber had started her on a high ledge, and she needed to cross the large pit of questionable green sludge in the center of the room. She shot another portal on the wall behind her, and stepped back as far as she could. Leaning back onto the springy heels of the long fall boots, she sprinted over the edge towards the blue portal on the panel below. With a quiet *bloop*, she exited out of the orange portal and flew through the air to the opposite side of the moat. As she neared her landing area, something felt off. The boots felt unstable, like a screw had loosened. Before she could think of a way to counteract any malfunctions, she hit the ground with a hard thunk. This landing was one of, if not the most, unsteady landings in her entire time at Aperture. The knee support on her left leg fully gave way, and she skidded forward precariously. Chell wasn’t one to lose control of her emotions, but she couldn’t deny the pumping of her heart and cold sweat that broke out as she realized that she was skidding right into the direction of the thermal discouragement beam. _‘Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, just stop stop STOP’_ She stamped down on her right boot, frantically trying to slow herself. She shot a portal to a nearby panel and turned to the floor to shoot the second, but before she could pull the trigger she ran out of time. Pain seared into her left thigh as she ran straight into the beam, letting out a pained grunt. She lost her balance and finally stopped, falling to the floor unceremoniously. She took shallow breaths and blinked hard, pushing herself to recapture her usual composure. She looked up from the grey tile floor to her wound, a large likely second degree burn.  
“Oh, how disappointing. I’ve seen newborn deer jump better than that,” her voice chided through the speakers. Suddenly, a loud monotone beeping cut her off,  
“It seems that the smoke from your second degree burn has set off the fire alarm. How inconsiderate of you. Unfortunately, I’ll have to go and take care of that. Please, keep making messes for me to clean up while I’m gone, I would hate to have you mistake me for anything other than your personal maid.” The red LED lights of the speakers flicked off, and Chell sighed in relief. Looking down at her boots, she noted the bent screw in the left knee support. _’Damn you Cave, you cheap bastard’_ she thought, beginning to pull herself up. She leaned on the ASHPD for support, but kept falling back onto her bruised knees. The chamber had been deathly quiet since she had stopped monitoring, except for the faint humming of machinery and Chell’s laboured breaths. A metallic creaking rang out to Chell’s right, and a metal grate opened up. Chell whipped around, eye narrowed in suspicion as she raised the ASHPD upward.  
“Hey, in here.” A gravelly voice hissed out, a pale weathered hand waving in the shadow. Chell had never seen another living soul in this place, and yet here, a (seemingly) human hand poked out from the grate. Chell knew this wasn’t a place where anyone or anything could be trusted, but she didn’t have much of a choice. The pain in her thigh had relaxed into a constant sizzling sting, but the overwhelming tightness in her hamstrings told her that she was not going to get far without some medical aid and proper food. She frowned, looking from her wound, to this hand, which was now flapping at her wildly,  
“come on! She’ll be back any minute!”  
_’dammit,’_ she thought, _’whoever this is, they can’t possibly be as bad as robots at this point.’_ Slowly, she crawled towards the grate, reaching out. Once close enough, the near white hand firmly grabbed her arm and pulled the nearly unconscious woman into the dark.  
. . .  
“It’s called Broca’s aphasia,” the doctor explained, brows furrowed as he took in the nervous stares from the two parents. These kinds of situations were never easy, no matter how many years one spent in the medical field. “It means that your daughter will struggle with speaking and writing fluently. It’s likely due to the trauma from the accident.” The mother, a mousey woman with frazzled brunette hair and a perpetual look of concern etched into her face, turned her eyes to the floor, rubbing nervously at the cast on her arm. “It’s all my fault.” She sobbed, leaning against her husband. The man, who radiated an air self-importance mingled with exasperation at the woman next to him, frowned, then looked back to the doctor. “Will she be able to speak at all? She’s not retarded now, right?” He sighed, idly fixing his glasses, “No, no, she’s not...mentally handicapped,” he paused, “She may get a few words out, but it won’t be a complete sentence. She knows what she wants to say, but she can’t say it. It will probably affect her writing as well. It’s an issue with her expressive language, not her recep-“The man let out a heavy sigh and checked his Rolex. “Is there anything we can do? Some medication she can take or something?” He asked, frustration bleeding further into his voice. The doctor looked down at his notepad, staring mournfully at the blue circular logo on the top right of the page marked ‘possible test subject inquiry’. “Well, there is a new residential therapy program being offered.” The doctor reluctantly handed the couple a brochure, explaining the potential benefits of sending their daughter to the Aperture Therapy Facility. He also explained that doing so required them to sigh over them parental rights. The father agreed immediately, and quickly signed the release form. The mother sat, still crying quietly as she stared at the form. The pen in her hand shook violently, hovering just above the blank line. After a moment, she looked up to her husband, tears already forming.  
“I- I don’t want to lose my baby.” She sputtered out.  
“You lost her when you decided to drive while plastered, Margot.” He snapped coldly, folding his arms and turning away from her attempts to maintain contact.  
“James, please, she’s our baby! She’s your-“  
“No, it’s done. She’s retarded cause YOU can’t keep your marbles straight. I didn’t sign up to raise some waste of space. You wanna waste your time on her, be my guest.” He snipped, pushing her hands off of his chest. The crying grew louder, and the tension grew more palpable with each passing moment. Warily, the doctor spoke, already heading towards the door.  
“I’ll let you two discuss this in private. Let me know what you decide.”  
He gently closed the door to the office and made his way down the hall, trying to block out the sounds of the bickering couple. *‘Maybe sending her away from all of this isn’t a bad idea’* he thought, taking one last look at the picture of the small girl with gray eyes before he put her file back into the records cabinet.  
. . .  
The first thing Chell saw when she woke up was a pale, bearded face, contorted into a mixture of concern and interest. The looming figure flew back with a quiet yelp as Chell sat up. The man had tied a bandage around her wound, it seemed. They stared at each other for a moment. Chell could see it was a man, early to mid 40s, disheveled in appearance, with shaggy black hair and a short beard. His pale blue eyes bore into her in an unsettling manner, as if he was looking through her. “....mouse?” She croaked, pointing at his chest.  
The man tilted his head, “huh?” She shook her head, then squeezed her eyes shut as she focused.  
“R..rrrr...aat.” She pushed out finally, pointing to his name tag with her index finger. She hadn’t spoken in years, and getting out these two words had been almost as strenuous as solving a test chamber. A light of recognition went off in the man’s eyes and he nodded.  
“Yes, Rattmann. Well, Doug. And you’re,”  
he pulled out a stack of papers from a pocket on the left side of his lab coat and unfolded it.  
“Chell, right?”  
She nodded, but eyed him cautiously. She put out her hand, making a ‘give me’ motion. He looked down at the papers, then whipped his head towards a worn companion cube to his left. Chell recoiled, instinctively grabbing for the ASHPD.  
“No it’s fine, she can look at it.” He stated, pausing as if to let another person respond.  
“What is she going to do, run off with it? Besides, it’s her file.”  
Chell snorted at the remark, relaxing a bit, and Doug turned to her.  
“Oh, uh, sorry. I don’t...this is hard to explain. This is Cubert, he’s my friend. You can’t hear him, obviously,”  
Doug rubbed his neck awkwardly, scanning Chell’s face for a reaction.  
“It’s complicated, I know he’s not...here, you know? Not real. I’m not *crazy*, heheh.” He laughed nervously while his hands idly pulled at a loose thread on his lab coat. “Qu, stop, it’s fine....no, We’re not...well I can’t do that right now.” She arched a brow, she had guessed that he wasn’t exactly stable, although those paranoid scrawlings all over Aperture had given that away much earlier, as she saw that from what she could see, the notes on the back of the paper matched the handwriting she had seen scrawled on the walls of past hideouts. So far, he seemed mostly harmless, if not a little too scattered for her taste. It reminded her of a certain blue sphere, and a small, nearly invisible smile formed. She sat there for a long moment as he continued talking with “qubert”. She snapped her fingers in his face impatiently after about 5 minutes of this “conversation”.  
*’Yup, this is going to get old quick’* she sighed internally.  
“Uh, anyways, here.” He sheepishly handed her the papers. Chell looked over the pages, and found that it was a test subject file. *’Why did he have this? Why had he kept it with him for however long he’s been in here?’* She thought. Her eyes narrowed, she no longer felt this man, who knew way too much about her, was “mostly harmless”. She rummaged through her pants pockets for a moment, and pulled out her black marker. ‘Had me why?” She wrote on a wall nearby, gesturing to make Doug stop arguing with this ‘cubert’ hallucination about god knows what long enough to see. “Why...did I have it? Is that what you mean?” He queried. He seemed to be catching on to her way of communicating pretty quickly. She nodded, giving him a stern look. He took a breath and spoke again,  
“I needed someone who could take her down, once and for all. I...I was there. The day that she killed everyone. I only lived because I hid, that’s all I’m really good at now, heh.” Rattmann looked down at his cuticles, picking at them as he seemingly drifted out of reality. Chell cleared her throat loudly while giving him a look that said, “go on?”, and he started again,  
“Anyways, I knew the insides and outs of her, it was part of my job, and she knew that. She’s not dumb enough to let me get close to her, but she, she likes you. She *wants* you to get close, for some reason. She gives you so many chances it’s, she never did that before, not for the other subjects. As soon as they messed up, boom, killed them. But you,” he looked up from his hands, his icy blue eyes boring into her with an eerie intensity.  
“you solve her puzzles. Well. Even the statistically impossible ones. She likes that. If I tell you how, you could get to her and destroy her. For real. If she’s gone, then...it’ll finally be over.” He continued to stare at her, determination furrowing his brows together. “Please, you’re the only one left. I saved you because I knew, I knew you were the one for this,” he looked down again, and Chell swore she saw his eyes watering. “I need to do this for her.” He whispered, seemingly more to himself than the nearby woman.  
Chell looked down, thinking for a moment. He was right, she could’ve killed her at any point during testing, but she didn’t. She kept letting her go, no matter what. It was plain to see that no matter how many passive aggressive comments were lobbed her way, she had some weird, rotting, sickeningly soft spot for Chell, her perfect test subject. Doug obviously had a personal stake in this, telling by his current state, but so did she. And it was clear that Chell was the only person so far that could possibly pull this off. For now, her suspicions about this man were pushed aside. If they wanted out, they had to work together. Sitting up, she grabbed her marker and wrote a message. Chell tapped Doug’s shoulder to gain his attention. As he looked up again, she nodded firmly while pointing to the wall. She had written a single word in quick, precise handwriting. “Plan?”


End file.
